


until the wind is gone

by AslansCompass



Category: Star Wars Rebels
Genre: Force Ghosts, Gen, Post canon, The Force Doesn't Work Like That
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AslansCompass/pseuds/AslansCompass
Summary: There is no death, there is the Force.So say the Jedi.But Kanan Jarrus isn't just a Jedi.  The Bendu offers him another path.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. entreaty

_There is no death, there is the Force._

"The Dark and the Light. Life and Death. That is how you understand the world." The deep voice echoed like an engine exiting hyperspace. "But tell me, Kanan Jarrus, what do you see?"

"I see..." He paused, taking careful stock of his senses. Perhaps none of this had happened. Antollon, the Darksaber, Hera's capture....perhaps he was still on Malachor with Ashoka, trying to retrieve Ezra from Maul's clutches. 

"What do you see?"

Hera. Fire reflected in her horrified eyes. Sabine and Ezra in the transport behind her.

"What do you see?"

"Home." Kanan's heart ache worse than any battlefield wound. 

"And where are you now?"

"Lost." Twenty years ago after Order 66; two years ago, with heavy bandages over his eyes in a Rebellion medcenter.

He belonged there, with them. 

But he could never go back.

"You still think in opposites, Jedi Knight." The Bendu sounded amused. "More than two paths may reach the same destination."

"What do you mean?" 

"When we met, I sensed conflict within you, Kanan Jarrus. But the chaos was not merely of your making. The Ashla and Bogan are disturbed, bent beyond recognition. I am the Bendu, the one in the middle. I must preserve the balance."

"But what does that have to do with me?"

"You are a pivot point; a _fulcrum_ , shall we say? And it is only a fool who discards a tool after one use."

The word brought back old memories, old faces and old debates. "A tool? Or a weapon?" _Like the clones_? He almost said, but the Bendu seems to hear the sentiment anyway.

"And what are the Sith but the tools of Bogan? What are the Jedi but the tools of Ashla?"

"And you?"

"I am the Bendu, the one--"

"Yes, the one in the middle. I know." Kanan's pain kindled to anger. "I don't care about your plans! I don't need your lectures! I have people out there who need me! Let me help them!" Chopper, Zeb, Sabine, Ezra, Hera, the whole Ghost crew. 

And one more.

The small life growing in Hera. The tiny piece of him, left behind. 

"Please." Kanan wasn't sure if he was crying or screaming. But everything in him plead with the Bendu, with the indifferent universe, with the Force itself. "Please."

He felt a soft warmth on his face, like the evening sun on an autumn day. 

**_Yes._ **


	2. family

_Ezra is alive._ That's what Kanan told himself, what he has to keep telling himself. 

Just because he knew it was true didn't make it any easier to believe. 

Ezra is alive. Kanan knew it, in the same way he knew his (other) son was growing and thriving. But even the Force can't tell Kanan where his apprentice had gone. He remained torn, pulled between the pieces of his family. Ezra's out there, somewhere; trapped with Thrawn, but safe from the Empire's schemes.

And so Kanan focused on the rest of his family, the people Palpatine might still snare.

They can't hear him.

(at least, not yet. Kanan remembers old stories from his creche days, whispers of Force ghosts and friendly spirits, and he knows _someone, somewhere_ , must have witnessed _something_ for there to be any stories at all. )

For now, all he can do is watch.

He sees Sabine paint a new mural; watches Rex rendezvous with other cells; takes watch with Chopper during the long nights. And Hera....

Oh, Hera.

He fusses over her like a Loth-cat with kittens, despite knowing that she would hate it.

> "I'm pregnant, not incapable," she tells the Ghost crew, several times over.

Kanan laughs with Sabine. That's his girl, alright. If things had gone differently at the depot--if he was really, truly, with her now--he's be a basket case, alternately frantic and preening, waiting on Hera hand and foot. 

As it is, all he can do is watch and wait. 


End file.
